Imagination
by nine miles to go
Summary: My name is Chris, I'm a runaway working for the Alliance, and in a second or two I'm going to die. Interested? One-shot, song fic to Skye Sweetnam's Leave Me Alone.


Imagination

Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed or Skye Sweetnam's song, but I do own my homework. Who wants to help me burn it? I'm serious. I NEED TO BURN IT!! Lol. _

* * *

_

_I sit  
Biting  
On the  
End of my pen  
Chewing  
It up  
Just like  
It was your head_

The people are miserable here. Honestly, you can't even look down a simple street without seeing some display of horror. It's worse here than it ever has been before; this is the peak of Wyatt's reign. In this time, parents can't say to their kids, "Well, when I was your age…" because no time has ever been more terrifying to anyone. People are slain messily right in front of you in the streets now for so much as uttering the word "witch."

I guess you could say that that's the main reason why I'm totally in trouble here. I'm a witch. By the way I'm describing "here," you might think I was talking about hell.

No. I wish, but no. I'm in San Francisco, a seemingly average fourteen-year-old kid that just happens to be the second most powerful being in the entire world.

The idea of it almost makes you wanna laugh, huh? Fate can be so twisted. That's why I'm hiding, trying my best not to blow my cover. If my true identity was ever revealed, then I'd either be dead or living my life Up There with bitter elders that would throw me out anyways. Either way, I'm dead, dead, dead.

Sorry. I'm rushing into this whole story with absolutely no explanation. Let me introduce myself:

My name is Chris Halliwell, and I'm in the ninth grade at Chatsworth Hills High. I have a sixteen-year-old brother named Wyatt that, like I mentioned before, rules and enslaves half the world. The other half of the world either have gotten lucky, are hiding, or have died already. Lucky them. My mom and Aunt Phoebe and Aunt Paige are the Charmed Ones, who were the original greatest force of good, but they've all gone a little weird since Wyatt turned four years ago. And I guess I have a dad, too, living Up There. Hah. I've never seen him in my life, but that's no problem for me because it's obvious that there would be nothing he could do to fix this awful mess.

I also had a cousin once, named Mel. She would be twelve years old now, but she died two years ago. "It was a tragic accident," Phoebe had insisted through her tears, grieving her dead daughter. "Wyatt would never kill Mel. I know he loves his little cousin so, so much. It was all an accident."

That's when I just got up and left. A little anti-climactic, I know, but I was just fed up beyond belief. I can't even remember how the idea to run away even crossed my mind. One second I was shaking in fury, bawling my eyes out at her funeral and cursing Wyatt's existence in every possible way inside my head and the next minute I was sitting in an alley with bag of school crap and clothes.

You see, I saw her die. I saw the malice and sick pleasure dancing in Wyatt's eyes in the pale light of the moon as he forced the potion down her throat. I was in a magical cage and Wyatt thought I was still unconscious when it happened. When he held her throat to the alley wall and stuck her there, forced open her mouth and poured it in. When she shriveled down to her knees, lifeless, never again to breath.

She was only ten years old.

I don't know how I was spared is the midst of this tragic event, but I will never stop wishing that it had been me. I will never stop wishing that I could've killed Wyatt before he killed her.

You're probably wondering where the heck I am right now. Well, it's not the worst place in the world. I'm among friends in the Alliance quarters with some boys my age. I don't know them that well; they're all wrapped up in their woes and sadness. Me? I say, "Get over it. Life goes on."

Because it does, doesn't it? No matter how much you'd like for it all to stop so you could have a moment to catch up, the world keeps on turning. And if you don't get up on your feet fast enough, you're the one that's left behind. It's as simple as that.

"I'm going out," I inform my silent roommates, shrugging on my coat. Well, it's not my coat. It was someone's coat once. We all pretty much share what we can find nowadays. It would be suicide to go out and buy something at a store, let alone sell anything.

"See ya," Connor mumbles. He's the only one that's ever really gotten to know me. Nobody else has any idea of my power; for safety reasons, I've kept my identity low key. I mean, I'm still Chris. Just a different Chris. I told them all I was an orphan and I didn't have a last name. Hey, you never know. It could be true. I haven't heard from any of my family in two years.

"Could you drop by the kitchen to see if any of the food's come in yet?" requests Jeff.

"Sure," I say back to him. Jeff's not that bad, either. He can be really bossy sometimes, but you can tell he cares about other people. He's almost like the leader of our little five-person room. "I'll be back soon."

"Careful," Jeff calls.

We exchange a glance, both thinking the same thing: Wyatt.

"I will. Thanks."

_I'm running away from here...  
Shot to pieces, shot to pieces  
Have nothing to say from here...  
Shot to pieces, shot to pieces  
Going my own way from here...  
Shot to pieces, shot to pieces  
Just leave me alone  
_

I know what you're thinking right now. "Oh my gosh, he's just going outside. Big deal." But that's not entirely true. As you might guess, life isn't so safe with Wyatt around, hunting down Alliance members. Especially when you just happen to be the brother of Wyatt himself. But I'll live. I can wipe out any of his probes with a mere flick of the hand, then orb away before anyone even traces my signal.

And it's not like I'm completely careless. I'm always well aware of my surroundings, always on my toes. While other little kids were up at night freaking out about the nonexistent monsters in their closet, I was tuning my ears in to any little noise, sharpening my eyesight to every little shadow. In the Halliwell manor, not being alert could make you dead.

I slowly take in the air, careful not to lower my guard but relaxing just enough for it to feel like freedom. "The best things in life can be right outside your front door," Paige always used to say. Of course, she wasn't talking to me. They hardly ever talked to me, not counting Mel. But she's dead. Anyways, no matter who she was talking to, those words seemed to repeat themselves over and over in my head. There were a lot of little tidbits about them like that that I can still remember. Every day they seem farther and farther away…until when I just feel so alive and they all come flooding back.

When I was little, I liked to imagine that everything they said to Wyatt, they were saying to me instead. I loved pretending that Wyatt was the ignored one and that I was the one they doted over. It never happened, but inside my mind…well, my imagination was a beautiful place once.

It tried to go back to it. I reached for it, searched for it desperately. But every time I tried, all I'd see was little Mel, so pale and dead.

Suddenly I see a girl leaning on the side of a building. Just sitting there, paying her own mind. She's not hurt or anything. In fact, she looks just fine compared to the rest of us. She's the first person that I've seen that wasn't half-starved in a long time. But she looked sad, so something compels me to approach her and sit down.

"What's your name?" I ask her.

She looks at me and scowls like the little kid she is. All the cuteness seemed to evaporate from those potential dimples and blonde curls. "Eulee. Why do you care? I don't even know you."

"Well, excuse me," I snap. "Don't you know that it's not safe out here?"

"I'll do whatever I want to do," she says impertinently. "I'm running away."

"Why?" I ask softly. "Who from?"

"My mom. She says that I can't go outside and I want to be, so I left."

A bubble of hot anger rises inside of me, but I suppress it before yelling at her. She couldn't be more than seven. She wouldn't understand that she was so lucky to even have a mother, how she was lucky to be alive and have people left to care for her. Her poor mother must be frantic at this moment.

"That was stupid," I say flatly. "Really stupid. Where do you live?"

"None of your beeswax, loser," she sneers, sticking her tongue out at me.

Okay, THAT'S the last straw. I stick my hand on her forehead, reading her mind, and orb her to the address that comes up. I knocked on the door and left her there, orbing away just as the door opened to tear-streaked woman.

"Stupid kid," I mutter once I've recollected where I first found her. She'll never understand until it's too late. That's always the way it is. Until you're hovering, inches from your own death, you never really understand anything about life.

Sorry, sometimes I get a little edgy. It's hard to be patient when it seems like the world is collapsing over you and you're the only one left to hold it together. Yup, saving the world, one little freakish seven-year-old at a time. Dandy.

_  
Forgive  
Forget  
What you  
Did to me  
I got to  
Get free  
Before  
I go crazy _

So, what to do on this fabulous day out? I look around me and suppress a laugh. I love laughing at the stupidest things. Like today—it's stupid, really, even pretending that it's even a semi-bearable day. Hey, it's okay with me if I'm not being murdered. Even if it's starting to rain.

I love the rain. I mean, not in that cliché, let's-go-sing kind of way. It's so different from my life. The sky is crying down on us all, so unafraid to show emotion. I envy the sky sometimes. Ever since Mel died, I could never cry. The rain is different. And for sanitary reasons, it's also clean…which is a relief after there was no fresh running water left in any of the cities.

I'm so tired today, too, after staying up all night trying to come up with spells to stop Wyatt. The rain is a perfect, unspoken reward between me and the universe.

_The best things in life can be right outside your front door._

I laugh out loud and lean against the alley wall, my head pointed towards the sky. Paige always was my favorite aunt--in my imagination, that is.

And just then the stupidest thing ever happens. I don't know how and I don't know why. Maybe I'm just an idiot. But all these sleepless nights…they'd take a toll on anyone after a while. My knees buckled and I slid down the brick wall, unconscious. Sleep is blissful. You feel no danger, so sense of uncertainty.

The closest I've been to my imagination since Mel died.

I didn't realize just how tired I was until mere moments before it happened. The rain beating down on me…silence everywhere…and then darkness.

In my dream I'm in a cage. Oh no, it's not just a cage. It's THE cage. The cage that I watched Mel die in. Somebody let me out…oh, please…I can't bear to see this again.

But in this dream all I see in the alley. I know that they're coming. Wyatt will have to kill her eventually; he always does in these nightmares. So many nights, so many horrors spent reliving this. I thought I'd gotten over it. It had been so long since I'd seen this. Now all I can do is watch, having no control over myself as I pound the cages, burning from the merciless shocks. The pain is real. The horror is genuine. And yet…

They're not coming.

"Where are you, Mel?" I ask to nobody. I feel so weak. "Where are you?" I'm still dreaming, but I know that at the same time I'm speaking the words that I've been screaming all along for the past two years. Where did she go? Why wasn't I, the brother of Wyatt, powerful enough to save her?

I see myself, alone on the streets. It was raining then, too. I'm looking back at my own memory, watching as I stealthily avoid the probes, hiding with an expression of apprehension and anxiety permanently glued on my face. That was when I thought I was powerful enough to live on my own.

_Nobody's invincible, not even you. _

Phoebe had said that to Wyatt once. I scoff at it now. Wyatt is invincible; it was me and Mel that weren't. But even then, the words stuck with me. A little piece of them still haunting me, I guess. A little piece of them that I'll never forget…

Suddenly I'm released from the nightmare, jolted awake by a harsh kick. I hold back my tongue, refusing to cry out or make any sudden movements. My eyes remain shut and I keep myself completely still in the rain. If it's one of Wyatt's men, he'll think I'm dead. And it's not like there's a neon sign over my head that reads "Brother of the Ruler of all Evil," right?

That's when I hear it coming: a knife, whooshing down. Not very many people could hear something as quiet as this, but when it comes to any kind of attack maneuver, I'm always prepared. My green eyes shoot open, alert, and I'm out of the way just in time to hear the blade hit the wall behind me.

I take a hesitant glance at my attacker. My heart seems to leap into my throat.

"_Piper_?"

_  
I'm running away from here...  
Shot to pieces, shot to pieces  
Have nothing to say from here...  
Shot to pieces, shot to pieces  
Going my own way from here...  
Shot to pieces, shot to pieces  
Just leave me alone  
_

"You….you…" she stutters.

"Watch out!" I shout. There's a demon behind her. No, correction: _many _demons. Many _hostile _demons.

For a second I think I'm dreaming still. It sure looks like a nightmare, anyway. I mean, here I am, numb from the rain and cold and surrounded by demons. I see Paige and Phoebe fending them off in another part of the empty street. My mouth hangs open in shock. Of all the times and places for me to fall asleep like a mindless imbecile.

"We were demon hunting," Piper explains while kicking at another demon and blowing a few up. "It's a tribe thing—they followed us back up here." I took note that she didn't dare look at me. She didn't dare face the son that she'd forgotten about all through his life and never cared about when he disappeared. I suppress a sick laugh; this was what they deserved, after demon hunting for no reason.

"Idiots," I mutter, freezing them all. "That was simple enough." I close my eyes and focus with all of my might, numb from the effort, and in less than five seconds the demon guts are spilling all over the pavement.

"Chris—" Phoebe calls out when I open my eyes.

"Don't touch me," I hiss, stepping back. "I can't believe you. Hunting demons? Whatever happened to protecting to innocent and not punishing the guilty? You guys will never learn. You disgust me. Stay away." With that, I orb away.

"But you're hurt!" I hear her scream just before the orbs carry me back the Alliance rooms.

Damn it. She was right. How was I supposed to know? It's not like I could feel it until I rematerialized. Besides, what good would it have done? Nobody ever healed me when I was hurt. I've always had to rely on myself to make it through.

So I guess you could say that my roommates are a bit shocked to see me orb, for one thing, and even more shocked to see the arrow in my gut. Hey, I was shocked myself. It was all I could do to resist screaming when the pain finally hit. Okay. Remain calm.

"Chris?" Connor falls back off his chair at the little desk we all share. "What happened?"

This immediately alerts the other Alliance members in the room to my presence. I'm the youngest one here, but probably the least thought of. The four of them are pretty shocked to see me bleeding all over the tiles. I manage to lift myself up in a sitting position, wincing slightly.

"I'm fine," I insist, "it's just…"

"An arrow!" Jeff yells. "What the hell were you thinking? What did you do?"

"Shut up, Jeff," Connor snaps. "He's hurt." He pulled out the arrow and I cringe as blood spurts out.

"Darklighter," I mutter. They stare at me, confused.

"Well then I think you'll be all right," Jeff says skeptically. "I mean, it's not like you're a—a—" A slow look of apprehension dawns on his face. "You ORBED into the room. You're a whitelighter? You're DEAD?"

I cough up some blood. Lovely. The other two boys, Tim and Spence, look shocked at the very idea. Connor's fiddling nervously with his fingers.

"I wish," I moan. "I'm half-whitelighter."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Jeff demands. "You told me that you were a witch without a last name! How could you be half-whitelighter? There are only two half-whitelighters in the world—Oh my God, you're not—you can't be—"

"Chill," I demand. Beads of sweat are forming and I can almost feel the poison slinking through my veins, further numbing my already drenched self. "That's a lie. I'm not Wyatt, I'm his little brother, Chris Perry Halliwell. Nice to meet you," I say sarcastically.

"Wyatt doesn't have a brother!" Jeff protests.

I glare at him. "Don't make me hurt you," I threaten. I laugh bitterly when he takes a step back and Spence and Tim flinch, expecting me to attack. "See? This is why I couldn't tell you all. I'm not evil. And I guess I'm not an orphan entirely." I shudder, shaking suddenly. "Yeah, Piper Halliwell and Leo Wyatt are my parents. Never met Leo. Piper and her sisters ignored me all the time, and the only person in the world I had was Mel, my cousin. Wyatt killed her. I saw it with my own two eyes, and I couldn't stop it." I shut my eyes closed, wincing. "So I ran away two years ago. That's when you guys found me." I end my speech, opening my eyes again to face Jeff. "So don't even begin comparing me with Wyatt."

_  
I'm running away from here  
Going my own way from here  
_

"I'm sorry," Jeff apologizes. "Wow. I never thought…"

Spence cracked a nervous grin. He was a goofy kind of guy before all this tragedy struck, and at times like these I can still see a hint of that. "I guess we thought you were sort of the defenseless little kid of us all," he admits. "You're a half-whitelighter? Damn, that's so…weird."

"Thanks." I grin back at him, but my smile instantly fades as I realize I can no longer feel my legs. The poison's working its way through me, slowly and painfully. I lay my head back onto the wall. "Anyone got any ideas? I'm not exactly invulnerable to this poison." I try to be light and joking about it, but anyone can see the evident panic in my voice.

"What happened?" Jeff repeats.

I shrug, blushing. "I…I kind of just…blacked out. I don't know. The next thing I knew I was in the middle of this nightmare and someone kicked me. I played dead—that usually makes someone go away—but then I heard a knife coming at me and moved. It was my own mother, mistaking me for a demon. Ha. They accidentally brought half the Underworld up to a street in the middle of San Francisco."

"What'd you do?" asks Tim.

"Had a tea party, dumbass," I snap. "Sorry. Well, I vanquished them. What else could I do?"

Their eyes grew wide in awe, but I didn't have time to dwell on that. In fact, it didn't look like I had much time at all.

"Isn't there something we can do?" Connor says frantically.

I shake my head. "All the adult members of the Alliance are out for supplies," I remind them, coughing again. Ugh. I must look so weak right now, and despite the fact that that's exactly how I feel at the moment, I hate it when other people see me when I'm down. "I'm as good as dead."

"Don't say that!" Connor demands, eyes fleeting around the room. He looks up at the sky. "Okay…elder people?" he asks uncertainly. "A little help down here, please?"

"They won't listen. My dad's one of them, remember?" I remind him. "I've never heard from him a day in my life. They don't believe in tampering with fate or some crap like that. I wish I could heal myself like stupid Wyatt…" Suddenly my throat catches and I can't even breathe. I choke for a moment and Connor cries out to Jeff to look for the rest of the Alliance, and then…wow. It's black again.

And I see Mel. Again.

But we're not in an alley and she isn't inches from death. She's…floating? We're in this utterly creepy black and white version of the dorm room. Great, I'm in limbo.

"Mel!" I cry out. "Mel…how…?" I don't care, I run up and hug her. She's not as young as when I last saw her; she's about twelve, the age she would be on earth. I can't believe that for once I can actually feel her, speak and hear her. "Mel…"

"Hey, Chris," she says, hugging me back with tears of happiness in her eyes. "It sure has been a while, huh?"

I nod. "Is it…I mean…Do you like it? Wherever you've been?"

She giggles. "Yes. I'm in a council of deceased witches and I met a boy from the 1800s." She must notice the confusion and shock on my face, because she giggles again. "He's the only one my age. Look, Chris. You're not supposed to die," she insists, face suddenly solemn and serious. "The Council has decided, and we overrule the elders."

_  
I'm running away from here...  
Shot to pieces, shot to pieces  
Have nothing to say from here...  
Shot to pieces, shot to pieces  
Going my own way from here...  
Shot to pieces, shot to pieces_

"What?"

She smiles that little mysterious smile of hers. "You're more important to the world than you might think. It's not your time to die. But the trouble is sending you back…you have to do it on your own."

"Wait—I'm not supposed to die? I just got hit by a damn darklighter arrow! How does that mean I'm not supposed to die?" I ask. "Mel, I just don't get it. I'm dead. Right?"

"Not yet," she corrects me. "We have a destiny allotted for you, as we do with everyone. Your destiny…it's not fulfilled yet. It's not that you don't have enough good karma—you're the most powerful being of good on the planet. And it's not because of your heritage or magic. It's because of your heart." She stares at me, blue eyes wide and colorful even in this black-and-white setting.

My eyes fill with tears. She was the only one I'd ever cry over. "I won't be able to see you again if I go back," I whisper.

She nods, knowing this too. A single tear runs down her cheek. "But you can visit me in your imagination," she suggests.

"I don't have that anymore."

"Yes, you do, Chris," she tells me, smiling again. "It's all there. You're afraid to face it because I died and you couldn't stop it. But you know what? You're imagination is the most powerful thing you have. It is your power—you're ability to dream. And that's why I need you to go back to that place, for all the innocent lives you're going to save. I need you to find your imagination and come back to life."

I nod. I'd do anything for her. I close my eyes and focus on finding my imagination again, somewhere far in the back of my mind, trapped from two years of anger and sadness kept suppressed. I imagine myself back in my body, fully healed. I imagine every little inch of the room around me; the boys, the desk, the bunks. I picture waking up…

"I love you, Mel."

"I love you too, Chris."

I hear frantic little gasps, but they're not my own or Mel's. I open my eyes, gasping for air and immediately seeing lights spinning around my head. But I'm okay. I'm alive.

The boys are hovering over me, unsure of what to do, still believing me dead. Jeff is pacing around the room, uttering strange curses; Connor has tears brimming in his eyes; Spence and Tim are sitting beside him in shock.

"I'm back," I say weakly in a hoarse voice.

But it doesn't matter. Mel will never be here and the rest of my family will never care.

_  
Just leave me alone _

_Leave me alone_

_Leave me alone _

* * *

Sorry, not continuing unless someone gives me a really good song to go along with it...I've been SUCKED DRY of all song ideas!! WAHHHHHHHH!! Anyways, this is a pretty crappy song fic compared to my others, thanks to a really, really bad case of writer's block. So no complaints, please! Lol. :D

Pink-Charmed-One


End file.
